This is a pretty damn good release. Around my way pop is a very good word and thing indeed and Kid Canaveral are unashamedly a pop group. So much so that their debut single was the excellent ‘Smash Hits’. Like that record ‘Left And Right’ is a catchy, cheerful piece of scuffed up guitar pop. It sweeps and soars in a delicious manner, all cool harmonies and a wonderful female voice topping things off. It kind of reminds me of the Shop Assistants with its neat way with a breakneck guitar-bass-drums sound and endearing vocals, the way it takes a song by the scruff of the neck and makes me smile with abandon.
‘Stretching the Line’ is a gentler, more melancholy creature, a pretty tune, plaintive male voice, keyboards and primitive drum machine all adding up to far more than the sum of its parts.
‘Long In The Tooth’ mixes up swathes of keyboards, acoustic guitar and a distorted creepy vocal with contrasting, crystal-clear male-female voices creating a song that really haunts me. It’s an intriguing and enjoyable mix, a real old fashioned single with the catchy pop song on one side and the ‘experimental’ songs on the flip and is all the more enjoyable for that as Kid Canaveral subtly subvert and stretch the parameters of the pop song. A great single from a great band. One to treasure.
